


Creation Myth

by balthesar



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-09-06
Updated: 2006-09-06
Packaged: 2017-10-23 08:32:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/248293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/balthesar/pseuds/balthesar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack Sparrow was born on the cambered quarterdeck of a pirate ship during a monsoon, the bastard son of a Spanish whore and an Irish merchant-turned-pirate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Creation Myth

Jack Sparrow was born on the cambered quarterdeck of a pirate ship during a monsoon, the bastard son of a Spanish whore and an Irish merchant-turned-pirate. His first words were "hard to leeward, ye swabbers," and his peculiar rolling gait is the result of a childhood spent without ever treading solid ground.

'Least, that's what the legends say. S'what Jack claims, when anyone bothers to ask. He recounts his miraculous birth on the pitching decks with a wicked grin and twinkling eyes, and whate'er fool what asked him about the past is always enchanted. Of course, the real truth is a lot less shiny: Jack's the only _legitimately_ gotten son of a now-widower blacksmith, what made the choice to apprentice to a mapmaker, and then made the choice to head for open water.

Jack claims the first land he ever walked was the port city on Isla Tortuga, which welcomed him as a native son, after bein' weaned on screech rum and taught to scramble ratlines better'n a monkey. Truth is, Portsmouth's the first port he ever saw and left, and not as a pirate -- for years Jack weren't nothin' more exciting than a prosperous merchant, runnin' sugarcane and silk and tea. Jack choked unpiratically on the first mouthful of screech what passed his lips, an' he were shakin' in his boots the first time he had to go aloft. But he climbed up anyway, an' he took another mouthful, and so on 'til he seemed so natural it was like he were born to it.

An' some of what Jack says is true, unadulterated with the glib polish that makes his legend sparkle: the East India Trading Company branded him a pirate, burnt it righ' into his skin, an' burned his beautiful ship, the _Wicked Wench_. If bein' a pirate wasn't already in his blood by then, you can reckon it was after. Practically 'fore the charred carcass of the _Wench_ hit bottom, Jack had sold his soul to the tentacled broker of the Devil to raise 'er so he might wreak his revenge upon one Cutler Beckett. He fitted her with black sails an' flew naught but the skull and cross-cutlasses since. Oh yes. That part is true, mark me.


End file.
